Premiere: Grant – Social Standards

It was precisely (to the day) this time last year that the first LP from the mysterious producer, Grant, was released on his own imprint, The Lauren Becall. His identity has been somewhat deliberately kept under wraps, supposedly to prevent his previous work under a different moniker affecting his Grant persona. But, given the standard of his output so far, he’d have to be Avicii or Barry Manilow to put us off. For his second big release, he moves to MÖRK, a first long player for the Lobster Theremin sub-label. The Acrobat was one of our favourite 2015 releases and Cranks is very much a solid, grey, melancholic follow up.

When deciding which of the 11 tracks to premier, it was ‘Social Standards’ that caught us straight out the gate when we noticed a very subtle sampling of Language’s ‘Breakdown Wo!‘, a highly sought-after deep house record straight out of Bristol. With the consistency of the album being so rigid, it’s often difficult to tell tracks apart, but with ‘Social Standards’, the strings and bit-crushed piano accompanying the album’s signature grainy pads really did make us think of what it’d be like if Basic Channel threw a day party.

Given the producer’s affiliation with Cary Grant and all things Golden Era Hollywood, “West Coast Deep House” is certainly an apt fitting for this record, which will be released 7th October. You can pre-order here.